Earthrise Diary 1209

© text Don Diespecker 2009

The Earthrise Diary (December 2009)

Don Diespecker


Dec 5 ’09: For one reason or another at this time of the year and during this particular week, there have been surprisingly few vehicles rumbling past here (leaving behind them the usual clouds of, cough, splutter, dust). Perhaps people are reading, writing, watching TV or possibly they’re staying home (I know I’ll regret these foolish remarks within days or even within hours). It’s certainly not quiet here: the cicadas are painfully loud, possibly the loudest in the world, so loud that if I’m watching early news on TV with the doors and windows open (it’s very warm upstairs where the TV is) I must necessarily turn the volume up in order to hear anything clearly—and my hearing is good. If we were cicadas, what would we gain by making this enveloping noise? Picture me tottering around with my hands to my ears (are you reminded of that painting by Munch? That’s me).
And while it’s in my mind: the Christmas orchids began flowering at the end of November.
I’m posting the Diary early this month because of Xmas and Hanukkah. No matter how much we pretend that these great festivals are generally for Others, my bet is that at this time of the year every one of us thinks of different times, times long ago when we were children. Yes? Now I’m remembering a ceiling-high Xmas tree in Victoria, BC, in the early Thirties. My sister Deirdre always made a star from cardboard and covered it with cigarette package ‘silver paper’ and that was attached to the top of the tree. Dad and Deirdre always dressed the tree with tinsel and coloured lights and there were always presents, beautifully wrapped. I don’t quite know how my parents managed to provide all of that during the Depression, but they always did and I guess I always took those magnificent Xmas trees for granted in childhood.
Interested readers will be pleased to know that I’ve survived the collapse of yet another Big Tree (this one fell directly behind and above the house on Wednesday arvo, Dec 2) with a crash that shook the building. Big trees, when they fall here make hair-raising sounds in phases. Often, like this: phase 1: a horribly LOUD gunshot crack that makes you gasp and paralyses the possibility of rapid flight because it seems so close; phase two: an increasingly growing enormous SWISHING noise (the leafy crown accelerating downward and rapidly producing phase 3: an air blast (if close) or shock wave resulting from a mass of air suddenly being pushed in a particular direction (in this instance, over the roof of the house); phase 4: the growing volume of noise made when the heaviest parts of the tree hit the ground (that pushes an additional volume of air and debris, including dead leaves on the roof) in the same direction as the first blast of air—more or less. In other words, the collapse of a big tree, especially when it is close by and can be seen, is frightening. The collapse seems to take several seconds; the noises and air blasts are so considerable as to stop you in your tracks and cause you to watch a very fast review of your life in the theatre of your mind. I was sitting at the computer when this occurred and phase 1 sounded weirdly like a 50-tonnes truck being dropped from a height of a thousand metres directly on to the deck of the nearby bridge (I’m probably exaggerating a little, but that was close to my first thought). In the next few milliseconds I realised that it was a tree crashing directly above the house and was alarmed that the house and I would be crushed. Whew!
Dec 8 ’09. After I’d discarded litres of sweat when raking leaves and debris into elongated heaps to be reduced by mowing—during hot, humid days, a windstorm tore down swathes of loose bark, twigs, big branches, and many leaves. The wind, as always, was a worry. Although living trees often fall when least expected, deadwood is susceptible to powerful winds (I’m thinking of a 2-tonner dead brush-box tree that seems likely to crash at any moment, yet has hung threateningly for years; it will likely destroy the car and carport if it comes down in one giant piece). I prepare for a lot more raking.
I’m seriously thinking of writing about the virtue of certain ‘weeds’ like European privet and the groundcover, tradescantia, widely known as ‘the wandering Jew’). The privet has tenacious roots and will withstand battering by floods (the older the shrub/tree the stronger). Without the old privet along the water’s edge, ‘my’ 40-m or so of riverbank would be severely scoured and washed down in a high flood; although I prune them occasionally, I wouldn’t dream of trying to eliminate them. Without the privet the higher and steeper parts of the riverbank would be undercut and the big riverside eucalypts would collapse into the stream probably with fatal consequences for swimmers, fishers, sailors and dozing gardeners pretending to read in the shade. The tradescantia is an amazing colonizer although its structure is fragile—if you grab a handful of the delicate-looking ground creeper and hastily yank, most of the plants will break away with little resistance thus leaving much of the structure still in the soil. If you take a little more time and tease more gently at single strands, most or all the strand (and the roots) will come free effortlessly. This groundcover will, almost in the blink of an eye, set up business in a shady area and begin to spread. More than 20 years ago I built in situ gravity walls at the top (edge) of the riverbank to prevent the top edges from collapsing. Overgrown tradescantia has covered and protected these edges to such an extent that when I recently raked back the groundcover to remove other weeds, I found silt/flood loam had accumulated to a depth of about 0.5-m; the groundcover had resisted all but the most violent flood turbulence and trapped the richly nutritious loam, some of which I can export to roses or dahlias in more distant gardens. Tradescantia knows how to grab the best soil for its territorial expansion and doesn’t seem to mind me taking my cut; it’s a good partnership.
Of the other weeds thriving here, bible or ragweed is now growing strongly and rapidly. These weeds pull easily, fortunately, particularly after rain or showers, but they are profuse, quickly covering the riverbank and reaching down the embankment to the road. The storm rains have made everything grow profusely, including the grasses. I’m surprised to see how quickly the newly sown grass seeds have grown and matured: the thriving kikuyu is now differentiating from the Japanese millet and the millet is seeding. I’ll mow it soon.
I found a discarded snakeskin on the stones supporting the Belvedere (small snakes like it in side the wall, but it must be dangerously hot near the exposed walls in summer. There have been very few snakes this season; water dragons, strangely, hang about more often in the harsh sunlight between the water and the shady lawn (the lawn being a good stinging fly hunting ground); and goannas have been seen more frequently. One goanna ambled to within a couple of metres of where I was reading (without noticing me, it seemed) until I leaped out of my chair. The handsome black reptile wasn’t the least bit ruffled. I presented my compliments from behind my chair, not wishing to encourage the lithe hunter (as long as I am tall) to race up to my head while removing bits of me on the way up).
Dec 17 ‘09. Part of another breaking tree crashed near the house early last night; there was no wind; the night was starry. It was the major limb of an old cheese tree (Glochidion firdinandi), so named because the small fruits are said to resemble Dutch cheeses in appearance and I took some time to trim off the branches with a machete before cutting the bigger branch with an axe. I now have large piles of dismembered tree to dispose of and a crook back. A branch or a tree takes only seconds to break and crash, but hours to deconstruct and to dispose of.
Later last night at 10:30 I was enjoying watching ‘The Eagle’ (a Danish crime thriller) when the power failed for no apparent reason.
The night marauders continue to snack on newly budding and flowering dahlias in the Theatre Garden. Clumsily. I heard possums loudly squabbling a couple of nights ago so perhaps possums are the culprits. Whatever creatures are enjoying these attacks they’re obliged to go over my 1-m + wire fence (from the impressive bounding I’ve seen possums do in the old cheese trees next to the house, perhaps the possums can take the fence in their stride, laughing). I picked the first strong dahlia bloom (Mrs Rees) on Dec 1 and have three others that I cloned, each now flowering. Thanks Tracey for minding them in your garden! Because all of the roses were damaged last month (several were blooming) by the night critters I replanted them all in the Dog’s Garden and may have lost several. Five of 10 are going to be OK, though (if they can withstand the move and the heat).
The next Fabled Anecdote will appear, touch wood, in the January Diary. I’ve collected the first fables and offered them (a book proposal) to a publisher.
I’m working on the second part of ‘A room of her own,’ a midge narrative that offers a tongue in cheek explanation of what I wrote about the budding novelist last month (Morgana is arguably the first midge novelist to write about human protagonists)... The new piece is titled ‘Along the white begonia flyway.’
A happy and safe holiday to you all from Don!